The U.S. Supreme Court just affirmed, in Bilski v. Kappos, that both software and business methods can be patented in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court rarely hears cases relating to software and business method patents, so this decision will likely be the law of the land for many years to come.

 Furthermore, the Supreme Court held that a process does not necessarily need to be tied to a machine or transform subject matter in order to be patentable, as the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had held in 2008. As a result, the Supreme Court's decision loosens the requirements that process patents must satisfy, and therefore will likely make it easier to obtain such patents.

The Bilski decision applies retroactively to all granted U.S. patents and pending patent applications. As a result, it is important that your patents and patent applications be reviewed to ensure that they are as broad, strong, and enforceable as possible. For example:

• If any of your patent applications described software or a business method but did not include any claims for that software or business method, now is the time to add such claims to the application.
• If the claims in any of your patent applications were written narrowly to comply with the Federal Circuit's restrictive standards, now is the time to broaden those claims before the application is granted.
• If any of your granted patents contain claims that are too narrow, now is the time to request a re-issue of those claims to broaden them.
• If you put off filing any software or business method patents while you were waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision, now is the time to file such applications.

Robert Plotkin, P.C. is glad to perform any of these tasks for you to maximize the scope, strength, and business value of your patent portfolio. Please contact us directly should you require any of these services or have any questions.

Stay tuned for a more detailed analysis of the Bilski case and its implications.